Nationally, Nate Silver called 51 states and DC. In California, the polls accurately predicted the passage of Proposition 30 despite weeks of gloomy coverage from supposed experts who were apparently basing their entire narrative on a “tightening” of the polls happening after Labor Day-as if that was abnormal.

Or maybe it was that it was a tax measure polling under 50? Well, it was a school measure in the lead. So, the expertise there should have discerned which was a controlling factor, or, failing a conclusion, fallen back on the polling data, especially after premier instate pollster The Field Poll showed it up big last week.

Nope. They wanted to not only write their story about Prop 30 losing-and stories about the contingency plans school districts were making, a sort of fiscal equivalent of “it bleeds it leads”-but they wanted to write the political eulogy of Jerry Brown. They wanted to write the “Dems in disarray” story when Gavin Newsome made a factually accurate but politically selfish statement about the effect of Prop 30’s allegedly impending failure.

And they were almost gleeful early Tuesday night when it was behind in the early returns-again, showing their stupendoes non-expertise on this when they should have known that the result was far from certain with no results in from Alameda, LA, and SF counties.

This is just the “mainstream” and allegedly non-partisan press. The Jarvtards in the remnant formerly known as a political party that is the California GOP must be freaking out. They started the modern anti-tax measure with their self-immolating, selfish, corrupt, and myopic Prop 13. Now they must wonder whether Prop 30 is the beginning of a nationwide trend saying, “we’ve cut enough from our kids, our firefighters, and our future.” Now it’s time for the 1% to have less gold leaf on their yachts so we can train our children to work in the economy they so wildly benefit from.

Propositions have been the bane of California for so long. Proposition 13 spelled the beginning of the Me Generations Randian solipsism. Prop 187 showed the true lack of colors of the pathetic band of deadenders formerly known as a political party that is the California GOP. Proposition 8 was based on terrible slanders and showed just how dangerous direct democracy can be not just to the budget, but even to fundamental rights.

So it is only fitting somehow that it is a Proposition that turns the tide. Prop 13’s game-rigging two-thirds majority rules have one only exception: a statewide vote. And yesterday, Californians took advantage of that, using this terrible system against itself. We might even have made it moot by putting the Democrats beyond the minority blocking veto in the legislature. Just like all Americans, California voters have had enough obstruction.

But Dan Walters and the gang are just going to keep making false equivalencies between unions and corporations, Democratic politicking and Republican obstruction and cheating, between taking $100 from someone making $40,000 a year and someone making $4,000,000 a year because they are so cowardly, so afraid of the right-wing noise machine (assuming they are not part of it) claiming that they aren’t objective (the first commandment of J-school) that they will bend beyond the breaking point to retain a patina of objectivity.

California and the nation as a whole has rejected this approach wholesale and that is the lesson of this election. It wasn’t a statement that we are an entirely liberal state or country, but a statement that we want results and we don’t care much about what approach is used as long as it works. Obstruction gets nothing done, ever.

For a while, a bunch of liberals in California seemed to have a hard on for Joe Mathews due to his work on California Crackup. But it’s time to end that love affair. It seems that Mathews is intent on claiming the role of Mickey Kaus as the world’s biggest concern troll. (Of course, Mickey will wait until he’s 75 to retire because that’s what he thinks is good for everyone else.)

The best I can figure is that Mathews feels that he needs to attack unions and Democrats in order to get “credibility.” You know, centrism, bipartisanism, all of that good stuff that the press loves but everyone else hates.

Last fall, he fell down the rabbit hole with the L.A. Times’s crusade to blame teachers for the problems in education with its ridiculous lynchmobish publication of teacher scores and then accused a University of Colorado study of being nothing but a piece of union propaganda (remember: in the concern troll world, unions are corrupt, but billionaires’ philanthropies poo smells like roses, and corporations are totally on the up-and-up all the time).

So, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he penned this editorial that blames our budget woes on teachers’ unions. You see:

Which is why it’s unfair that Republicans get so much blame for protecting the two-thirds vote requirement for taxes.

This brand of tired “pox on both your houses” nonsense is how the GOP constantly escapes with its hide after every disaster they bring about. You see, it’s not the two-thirds threshold for raising taxes that matters. Heck no! It’s the teachers’ unions and their hypocritical love of Prop 98 that’s doing it.

Joe: could it be that public education is the biggest expense because it’s something that virtually everyone uses? or is that just a coincidence?

And, also, Joe: how many times has each Democrat in the California Legislature voted to suspend Prop 98 over the last several years? What’s that you say? They all have every time? And how many Republicans have voted to raise taxes? Wait, say again? The absolute minimum to do anything?

Yes. It’s ridiculous. But it’s what it takes to make your name in the “liberal media” these days.

Old Man Walters forgot to eat his Metamucil this morning.

Walters is reacting to what California pundits have already decided is Governor Brown’s strategy. In a nutshell, he is going to submit a “clean” budget in early January and then ask the voters to fill in the gaps in a May Special Election. Walters doesn’t like it.

Were Brown’s doomsday strategy to fall short, he’d be stuck with an even worse budget mess and virtually no option other than following through with deep spending slashes in schools and other public services.

Huh? I’m not sure I understand what Walters means here. If the measures fail, the January budget goes into effect. It won’t be a “budget mess”-a human disaster, maybe, but not a “budget mess.” And, yes, those cuts will come, but what’s the alternative?

Walters doesn’t think it will be so easy for Brown to get a budget through in time.

Even before he could seek new taxes from voters, however, Brown would also have to persuade his fellow Democrats in the Legislature to vote for a slash-and-burn budget. And that could be extraordinarily difficult because Democrats would be getting pressure from their political constituencies, such as public employee unions, and be facing uncertain re-elections in 2012 because of redrawn districts and a new “top-two” primary system.

Maybe he wasn’t paying attention in November when the majority vote budget law was passed. That means there would have to be 13 defectors in the Assembly without picking up a Republican and 4 in the Senate without picking up a Republican. Why do I think there’s a chance some Republicans will sign on? Because it will be the kind of austerity budget they want!

Now, far be it from me to impugn the learning of our own local version of David Broder, but does Walters know anything about the dynamics of legislative bodies? There just aren’t the votes there to buck a new governor who just won a solid majority (and therefore a solid mandate from the voters) without breaking a sweat. Maybe a couple will make protest votes. But 13? Yeah, right.

Brown’s budget will sail through and the campaign will be on. I’m guessing there will be several measures covering a number of different priorities, including education, health and welfare, and so on.

So, what does Walters want him to do? Try and do it the old fashioned way and find 3 Senate Republicans and 2 Assembly Republicans to vote to raise taxes? He must believe that “pox on both your houses” kind of rhetoric that would hold that it is equally tough for Dems to vote against the unions on the one hand and Republicans to vote to increase taxes on the other. Bullshit.

Personally, I think Brown’s strategy is brilliant. The voters have wanted it both ways for too long and the Republicans have been able to pin all of the tax increases on Democrats. They won’t be able to do that if the voters approve (though surely they will still try).

As an aside, I am strongly in favor a ballot measure that would reduce to 55% or to bare majority the ability of school districts to raise parcel taxes. I hope that shows up too, and I plan on doing some work to make sure it does.

UPDATE:

Joe Matthews apparently also thinks Dan Walters is being a dick.

I want to like Joe Matthews and “Prop Zero.” I know a lot of smart, wonkish people have loved his book. But it seems these days that you can’t keep a job in the media without picking an issue to punch some hippies on. Apparently, Matthews has decided to pick on teachers. Well, at least their unions. You see, teachers unions aren’t allowed to advocate for teachers and do their jobs. They’re supposed to be education policy officials for some reason. (This must have been a “new rule” at some point.) The new ethos in America is to stop anyone from doing well if you can’t too, I guess.

Sigh.

Today’s blog post is entitled, “Teachers Aren’t Secret Agents.” (No linky.) As if the only public scrutiny teachers face is a potential LA Times database. Have these people completely forgotten school boards? There is also data published all the time on the individual schools. It’s also completely ignorant of what goes on in schools right about now: a lot of breaking down of last year’s test score data to work on areas of improvement.  

This is completely leaving aside the question of whether these scores measuring anything or the right things. So, even assuming that’s true now we have “reasonable liberals” like Kevin Drum and Joe Matthews saying that it’s a good idea to publish all of this data about teachers because, umm, they are public employees and data is good. Or something. Except that even public employees still have a right of privacy with respect to their personnel files. Except that there is a virtual certainty that this data will be used to harass, settle personal scores, and for all kinds of shenanigans. There will be a “nobody could have predicted” moment.

I tell teachers (my mom and mother-in-law are teachers, my wife was for 6 years before moving into administration, and I taught in community college about 10 years ago) that they need to accept testing as part of their job now and try to use it to their advantage: it provides a quantitative metric of their job performance (even if it’s not measuring anything you believe in). Many people would love to have something like that to always make sure that they can prove they are performing. It’s not the ideal situation, and the unions that are supposed to improve their working conditions are under no obligation to support it, but that’s the lemonade to be made here.

But that’s a far cry from suggesting that the James O’Keefes of the world should be given all of this information to be used for whatever purpose they want. And, I still am shocked that people think that it’s a good idea to make the teaching profession even tougher. Low wages (especially for the amount of education required), increasing instability, tough working conditions, and now this? And somehow the big evil teachers’ unions are all powerful?

And then there’s a companion piece from Dan Quayle’s lackey on the same blog today (NO linky) rinse and repeating all of the voucher arguments once again. This is another one of those hippie-punching “credibility building” issues for liberals. Even The West Wing flirted with this one. See, it’s clever. Make us feel sorry for those inner-city colored children who will suddenly all magically have access to perfect clean suburban schools if they just have vouchers.

My head is about to explode. Seriously.

I have your solution to the “problems” in schools right here: triple the wages for teachers. You will have young people with Ph.D.’s from the top schools clawing each other’s eyes out to fill almost every position. Competition to get the best test scores will be fierce. Know how I know? This is what big corporations, law firms, banks, etc. had to do in the late 90s to keep each other from stealing each others talent.

But see, this simple “Econ 101” style “supply and demand” fix that is almost Ayn Randian in its oversimplicity never occurs to the free market defenders of the Constitution for some reason. And to me, that completely destroys THEIR credibility on the issue. They want better schools and better teachers but they also want to be able to pay them nothing in crumbling buildings.

It’s a lie, a hoax, it is destroying our future and it gets traction with every attempted hippie punch by fame seeking media whores like the aforementioned.

Update: Add David A. Lehrer of the LA Jewish Journal, whoever he is.